How is it with your soul? It’s possible to gain the whole world yet lose sight for what really matters. Discover the unhurried rhythms of grace with soul care.
While having coffee with my friend Kathryn this morning, our conversation drifted to the cultural differences that exist between South Dakota and Northern Virginia. Although she lived in the Washington suburbs for years, she recently sold her home and moved to South Dakota.
What’s in South Dakota? You ask.
Not much of anything really, and that is precisely the point.
Life moves at a slower pace in South Dakota. People have time in their lives and schedules to forge meaningful relationships. Here on the East Coast, we can barely squeeze in time for our spouses much less time with friends and family. Our debt is deep, and our relationships are shallow. Our homes are large, but our families fractured.
Souls are living, and like all living things they thrive or wither, based on the care we give it. In Renovation of the Heart, Dallas Willard writes, “Our soul is like an inner stream of water, which gives strength, direction, and harmony to every other element of our life. When that stream is as it should be, we are constantly refreshed and exuberant in all we do, because our soul itself is profusely rooted in the vastness of God and his kingdom, including nature; and all else within us is enlivened and directed by that stream.”
Kathryn’s soul is thriving. I see it in her eyes and the lilt in her step. Like the daffodils in spring, Kathryn is coming into full bloom. And it is beautiful to see. She has just returned from a writers’ conference in Tucson, and the writing she shared with me left me breathless. Waves of creativity washed over her; one idea flowed into the next, as her words and heart became a tool for transformation, chipping away at my fear and discouragement.
The wide-open spaces of the Great Plains have been good for Kathryn.
While we all can’t move to South Dakota, we can carve out more space in our schedules to discover the unhurried rhythms of grace, to cultivate compassion, and to give ourselves time for reflection and rest.
Kathryn is tending to her inner life, and it shows.
How is it with your soul?